{"id":135397,"date":"2026-02-16T19:44:14","date_gmt":"2026-02-16T19:44:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/135397\/"},"modified":"2026-02-16T19:44:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T19:44:14","slug":"after-an-ice-arrest-a-scarred-family-returns-to-26-federal-plaza-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/135397\/","title":{"rendered":"After An ICE Arrest, A Scarred Family Returns To 26 Federal Plaza"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Gwynne Hogan, The City<\/a><\/p>\n

Feb. 16, 2026<\/p>\n

The night before her check-in this week with Immigration and Customs Enforcement Ingrid, a 37-year-old mother from Honduras, tossed and turned, waking up every hour or so to check the time.<\/p>\n

Find out what’s happening in New York Cityfor free with the latest updates from Patch.<\/p>\n

Her eight-year-old son and four-year-old daughter were anxious too. <\/p>\n

The last time they\u2019d had a check-in at 26 Federal Plaza, five days before Christmas, what started as a routine visit quickly became a nearly three-week-long nightmare. <\/p>\n

Find out what’s happening in New York Cityfor free with the latest updates from Patch.<\/p>\n

THE CITY previously reported how the family was arrested, shipped across the country and confined to a hotel room for nearly 20 days, through Christmas and New Year\u2019s, without being able to call their family or a lawyer, before being abruptly returned to New York and released thanks to a federal judge\u2019s temporary restraining order.<\/p>\n

But that order has expired, and the judge decided not to block their deportation. While their attorney is appealing that decision, returning to the scene of their arrest hung heavily over the family as they prepared to return just weeks after their release in early January, following a holiday season. <\/p>\n

THE CITY is withholding Ingrid\u2019s full name and the names of her children as her immigration case is ongoing.<\/p>\n

The night before their new appointment, Ingrid\u2019s eight-year-old son packed a backpack full of toys the night before recalling how bored he\u2019d been, trapped inside a hotel room for weeks without anything to play with. <\/p>\n

Ingrid\u2019s daughter, a U.S. citizen, stuffed a miniature white purse with pens and paper for doodling.<\/p>\n

Ingrid prepared a bag full of milk, juice, water and snacks. When the family was arrested in December, they\u2019d spent all day in a waiting room with nothing to eat. They\u2019d been offered one meal but it was too spicy for the kids and they were starving by the time they got food late that evening while confined in a hotel room near LaGuardia airport. <\/p>\n

As their new appointment approached, Ingrid could feel her children\u2019s anxiety build. <\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018I hope they don\u2019t arrest us because the 13th is Valentine\u2019s Day, and I want to be there,\u2019\u201d Ingrid recalled her son telling her. <\/p>\n

\u201cAs a mother I get so sad,\u201d she told THE CITY in Spanish. \u201cWhat do I say to the child.\u201d<\/p>\n

Where Families Are Arrested<\/p>\n

Inside 26 Federal Plaza, ICE agents stalk the halls on the floors with immigration court rooms, arresting immigrants appearing for mandatory court hearings. More recently, legal filings indicate, agents have also started arresting people attending appointments and interviews inside the USCIS offices on another floor of the building. <\/p>\n

But the ICE check-ins \u2014 required for many immigrants in deportation proceedings or who already have orders of removal \u2014 are the primary way the agency is arresting children in New York City.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

An immigrant family leaves an ICE check-in office at 26 Federal Plaza, Feb. 12, 2026. Credit: Ben Fractenberg\/THE CITY<\/p>\n

The agency\u2019s records show 151 children in New York City were arrested between January and Oct. 15 of 2025, the most recent data available through the Deportation Data Project, which obtained it through Freedom of Information Requests. <\/p>\n

Families under ICE orders of supervision show up in the pre-dawn hours and line up outside 26 Federal Plaza. They\u2019re directed to floor offices where they cram into a waiting room. <\/p>\n

Some never get to leave of their own accord, but are arrested and often speedily deported, as was the case of a Chinese father and 6-year-old son and the Ecuadoran 6-year-old and mother THE CITY reported on last year. <\/p>\n

Lining Up in the Cold<\/p>\n

The morning of their check-in, Ingrid had to rouse her young children before dawn, leaving their home in Suffolk County at 4:30 a.m. to get a ride with a neighbor. The family arrived 20 minutes ahead of their 7 a.m. appointment on one of the coldest days in years, with the temperature hovering at just 6 degrees.<\/p>\n

Around four dozen people were lined up outside waiting for their check-ins, many with young children in strollers, bundled up and draped in blankets. <\/p>\n

Building security started letting in attorneys and people with other types of appointments into the building by around 7 a.m. In a separate line, the families waiting for ICE check-ins remained outside in the cold for another 40 minutes. <\/p>\n

Ingrid\u2019s son sobbed, unable to feel his feet. She watched a father cradling his young child, trembling with cold as tears ran down his cheeks.<\/p>\n

ICE employees manning a podium outside the ground-floor check-in office told THE CITY they weren\u2019t in charge of the door and deferred to the security guards outside. <\/p>\n

Uncertainty hung over everyone in line about, wondering, as Ingrid put it, \u201cIf this is the last time we\u2019ll be here, or if they\u2019re going to send us to our countries, or if we\u2019ll be allowed to return to our houses.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked about children waiting outside in Arctic temperatures this week, Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the agency that runs security in government buildings, replied: \u201cSo your claim is that other people could go inside before 7 A,M but kids were barred from going inside or what are you trying to claim here?\u201d <\/p>\n

As families were finally allowed to enter the lobby and make their way through security, a girl who looked to be around nine sobbed silently and rattled with cold, stamping her frozen feet while following her mother to the elevator.<\/p>\n

Two ICE officials in plain clothes directed adults to a ground-floor office, while sending families with kids to an office on the 5th floor, down a long hallway into a waiting room. The few lawyers accompanying families and this reporter were told to wait outside. A sign translated into six languages posted on a bulletin board by the door urged people to self-deport, saying they could be eligible for a $2,600 stipend if they did so.<\/p>\n

After about an hour, families started leaving one by one. Ingrid was let go by around 9:30 a.m. and given a date to return in August. Her relief was palpable as she embraced her lawyer, Andrea Soto, who\u2019d been waiting in the corridor. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m going to breathe a little easier,\u201d she said. \u201cThank God we can return to normal life.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

A family and their lawyer leave 26 Federal Plaza in Lower Manhattan to head back to eastern Long Island following a check in with ICE officials, Feb. 9, 2026. Credit: Gwynne Hogan\/THE CITY<\/p>\n

Over a hot chocolate a few blocks from 26 Federal Plaza, Ingrid said she\u2019d felt overwhelmed at times: \u201cI feel like I can\u2019t do this anymore, sometimes I wonder, is it better if I just leave?\u201d<\/p>\n

But then, Ingrid said, she thinks about her difficult journey here in 2021, the years of struggle and hard work and money spent trying to fight for a right to stay in the United States, the brighter future she dreamed of for her family. Her attorney, Soto, believes Ingrid is eligible for a special kind of visa for victims of human trafficking and is asking a federal appeals judge to block Ingrid\u2019s deportation until that can be processed. <\/p>\n

One Bible verse plays on repeat in her mind, Ingrid said: Psalm 27:13: \u201cI would have lost heart, unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.\u201d <\/p>\n

She recalled weeks earlier when she and her children had boarded a plane in Louisiana headed for Honduras, only to be pulled off 20 minutes later when word of a federal judge\u2019s restraining order made its way to ICE officials on the tarmac. <\/p>\n

\u201cAll of this is a miracle. They took us off the plane,\u201d she said. Still, she went on, \u201cI would not wish this on anyone, what we\u2019re going through, my kids and I in this moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

This press release was produced by The City<\/a>. The views expressed here are the author\u2019s own.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Gwynne Hogan, The City Feb. 16, 2026 The night before her check-in this week with Immigration and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":135398,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[9,24,55,54,56],"class_list":{"0":"post-135397","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-new-york","9":"tag-new-york-city","10":"tag-new-york-city-headlines","11":"tag-new-york-city-news","12":"tag-ny"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135397\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/135398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}